The Black Death was a devastating global epidemic of

bubonic plague that struck Europe and Asia in the

mid-1300s. The plague arrived in Europe in October
1347, when 12 ships from the Black Sea docked at the
Sicilian port of Messina. People gathered on the docks
were met with a horrifying surprise: Most sailors
aboard the ships were dead, and those still alive were
gravely ill and covered in black boils that oozed blood
and pus. Sicilian authorities hastily ordered the fleet of
“death ships” out of the harbor, but it was too late:
Over the next five years, the Black Death would kill
more than 20 million people in Europe—almost one-
third of the continent’s population..

How Did The Black Plague

Start?
Even before the “death ships” pulled into port at
Messina, many Europeans had heard rumors about a
“Great Pestilence” that was carving a deadly path
across the trade routes of the Near and Far East.
Indeed, in the early 1340s, the disease had struck
China, India, Persia, Syria  and Egypt.